PENYAKIT JANTUNG : Bagaimana Anda Mengurangi Resikonya

Penyakit Jantung dan Pembuluh Darah
Adalah penyebab kematian terbesar dibanyak negara. Semua orang mempunyai kemungkinan mendapatkan penyakit ini. Tetapi kita dapat memperkecil kemungkinan ini dengan melakukan beberapa langkah yang sederhana.
Apa Penyebab Penyakit Jantung?
Anda mempunyai resiko lebih tinggi jika:
Merokok
Kolesterol tinggi
Tekanan darah tinggi
Tidak olahraga (Exercise)
Kelebihan berat badan (Overweight)
Resiko Anda Lebih Tinggi Terkena Penyakit ini jika Anda Adalah Pewaris
Orangtua Anda adalah penderita penyakit jantung pada usia enam puluhan, maka usaha untuk mengurangi resiko ini perlu lebih diperhatikan.
Beberapa Langkah Menuju Kesehatan
Jangan merokok
Kurangilah makanan yang mengandung lemak/minyak
Perbanyak makan buah, sayuran, roti dan cereal
Jadikanlah olahraga bagian dari kehidupan Anda sehari-hari (Jalan baik untuk kesehatan)
Jagalah berat tubuh Anda
Pergilah ke dokter untuk memeriksa tekanan darah dan kolesterol Anda
IKUTILAH LANGKAH-LANGKAH DI ATAS, ANDA PASTI AKAN MENIKMATI KEHIDUPAN YANG LEBIH SEHAT
Catatan Penting:
Konsultasikan kesehatan Anda dengan dokter perusahaan, jika Anda merasa ada kelainan pada kesehatan tubuh Anda.
Penyakit Jantung Koroner
Penyakit jantung koroner merupakan penyakit yang banyak diderita masyarakat
Penyakit ini menyerang pembuluh darah yang mengalirkan darah ke jantung. Timbunan lemak, kolesterol dan jaringan ikat pada dinding pembuluh darah secara perlahan-lahan pada akhirnya akan mengakibatkan menyempitnya pembuluh darah. Pada waktu pembuluh darah menyempit, jantung harus bekerja lebih keras dan ini menyebabkan nyeri dada. Kalau pembuluh darah tersumbat sama sekali, pemasokan darah ke jantung akan terhenti. Inilah yang disebut serangan jantung.
Faktor resiko untuk penyakit jantung coroner bisa dibagi menjadi dua:
1. Faktor yang tidak bisa kita kendalikan
Keturunan
Umur, makin tua resiko makin besar
Jenis kelamin, pria mempunyai resiko lebih tinggi dari pada wanita (wanita resikonya meningkat sesudah menopause)
2. Faktor yang bisa kita kendalikan
Merokok
Tekanan darah tinggi
Kadar lemak yang tinggi dalam darah
Kurang olah raga
Diabetes yang tidak terkendali
Stres
Kegemukan
Untuk memperbaiki kadar lemak, perlu diperhatikan hal-hal berikut:
1.Kurangi makanan berlemak, termasuk segala jenis lemak.
2.Kurangi makanan yang mengandung lemak hewani.
3.Gantikan dengan lemak poliunsaturated (minyak jagung, minyak bunga matahari) dan lemak monosaturated (minyak kanola, zaitun).
4.Makan ikan 3 - 4 kali seminggu.
5.Tingkatkan jumlah serat terutama dengan buah segar, sayuran, kacang-kacangan kering, barley oats (sejenis gandum).
6.Pertahankan berat badan ideal.
7.Kurangi makan gula dan makanan manis.
8.Kurangi alkohol (maksimum 1 atau 2 gelas sehari).
9.Olah raga secara teratur.
10.Jangan merokok.
Catatan:
Jika anda mengidap tekanan darah tinggi, jangan gunakan garam dalam masakan dan jangan pula tambahkan kecap asin dalam makanan anda.
Jenis makan berikut harus dihindari karena mengandung banyak garam:
garam, garam bawang, garam sayur
ikan asap, daging asap, ikan asin
kecap (bisa diganti dengan kecap yang kurang asin)
terasi
saus tomat, saus Barbecue, saus maggi
acar
ham, sosis, corned beef
sup dalam kaleng, kaldu sup atau mie instant

Gigi sebagai Sumber Penyakit Jantung

PENYAKIT jantung adalah penyebab utama kematian di negara maju. Di AS saja diperkirakan 12,4 juta orang menderita penyakit ini dan 1,1 juta orang akan terkena gangguan jantung serius tahun ini.
Tahun 2000, 16,7 juta penderita meninggal karena penyakit ini, atau sekitar 30,3% dari total kematian di seluruh dunia. Lebih dari setengahnya dilaporkan dari negara berkembang. DI Indonesia, prevalensi penyakit jantung dari tahun ke tahun terus meningkat.
Di samping faktor risiko klasik (merokok, obesitas, kadar kolesterol, tekanan darah tinggi, kurang aktivitas, diabetes mellitus, stres), hasil penelitian akhir-akhir ini menyebutkan bahwa reaksi peradangan (inflamasi) dari penyakit infeksi kronis mungkin juga menjadi faktor risiko. Meskipun begitu, hanya penyakit gigi kronis yang terbukti terkait dengan penyakit jantung.
Mekanisme penyebaran
Penyebaran penyakit dari gigi ke organ tubuh lain dapat dijelaskan lewat teori fokal infeksi.
Fokal infeksi adalah infeksi kronis di suatu tempat dan memicu penyakit di tempat lain. Racun, sisa-sisa kotoran, maupun mikroba penginfeksi bisa menyebar ke tempat lain di tubuh seperti ginjal, jantung, mata, kulit. Dampak penyakit gigi pada jantung dapat berupa penyakit jantung koroner, peradangan otot, serta katup jantung (endokarditis).
Bakteri yang terikut aliran darah bisa memproduksi enzim yang mempercepat terbentuknya bekuan darah sehingga mengeraskan dinding pembuluh darah jantung (aterosklerosis). Bakteri dapat juga melekat pada lapisan (plak) lemak di pembuluh darah jantung dan mempertebal plak. Semua itu, menghambat aliran darah serta penyaluran sumber makanan dan oksigen ke jantung, sehingga jantung tak berfungsi semestinya.
Gejala awal dapat berupa nyeri dada, meliputi rasa seperti terbakar, tertekan, dan beban berat di dada kiri, yang dapat meluas ke lengan kiri, leher, dagu, dan bahu. Nyeri dada juga terasa di bagian tengah dada selama beberapa menit. Setelah kejadian biasanya diikuti rasa mual, muntah, pusing, keringat dingin, tungkai serta lengan menjadi dingin, napas terengah-engah, dan sesak napas.
Angina berkepanjangan akan menjurus ke serangan jantung (miokard infark). Namun sering kali penyakit jantung koroner berlangsung tanpa adanya gejala, ia tidak menimbulkan masalah sampai keadaannya sudah parah.
Kemungkinan lain, reaksi peradangan yang disebabkan oleh penyakit gigi meningkatkan pembentukan plak yang memacu penebalan dinding pembuluh darah. Penelitian menunjukkan, orang dengan penyakit gigi mempunyai risiko dua kali lebih tinggi terkena penyakit jantung koroner.
Endokarditis
Bakteri yang ditemukan pada plak gigi merupakan salah satu faktor penyebab endokarditis.
Bakteri di lubang gigi maupun gusi yang rusak dapat masuk ke dalam sirkulasi darah lewat gusi yang berdarah. Bakteri ini dengan mudah menyerang katup jantung maupun otot jantung yang telah melemah. Gejalanya berupa demam, bising jantung, perdarahan di bawah kulit, bahkan embolisasi (penyumbatan) pembuluh darah kecil di organ-organ tubuh lainnya.
Meskipun jarang, penyakit ini dapat berakibat fatal dan kadang kala memerlukan operasi katup jantung darurat. Selain itu juga sangat dianjurkan pemberian antibiotika sebagai profilaksi pada orang yang menderita prolaps katup jantung, penyakit jantung rematik dan kelainan jantung bawaan, sebelum mendapatkan tindakan pengobatan gigi.
Karena mencegah selalu lebih baik daripada mengobati, perlu perawatan gigi yang baik dan pemeriksaan gigi secara berkala. Cara pencegahan terbentuknya karang gigi cukup sederhana, yaitu dengan rajin dan teliti membersihkan gigi secara baik dan benar. Penggosokan pada lidah selama 30 detik juga terbukti mengurangi jumlah bakteri dalam mulut.
Brosur cara menyikat gigi yang baik dan benar dapat diperoleh dengan mudah di setiap tempat praktik dokter gigi. Pemakaian dental floss (benang gigi) juga amat penting untuk membersihkan daerah- daerah yang sulit terjangkau oleh sikat gigi, terutama daerah antargigi dan juga pada gigi-gigi yang berjejal.*

Cegah Penyakit Jantung dengan Mengonsumsi Kacang

Jakarta - Mitos makan kacang dapat menimbulkan jerawat, asam urat, dan batuk, tidak semuanya benar. Menurut Guru Besar Bidang Nutrisi dari Penn State University, Dr Penny Kris-Etherton, semakin kita sering mengonsumsi kacang, maka risiko terkena penyakit jantung koroner pun semakin berkurang.

Menurutnya, kandungan asam lemak tak jenuh yang ada dalam kacang-kacangan, khususnya kacang tanah terbukti sangat tinggi dan profil asam lemak dalam kacang tersebut merupakan salah satu faktor yang menyebabkan terjadinya penurunan risiko penyakit jantung koroner. ”Mengkonsumsi satu ons kacang, lebih dari lima kali seminggu bisa menurunkan risiko penyakit jantung koroner 25 persen sampai 39 persen,” ujarnya.
Penelitian Penny ini didukung oleh penelitian dari Dr Frank Hu dari Havard School of Public Health. Dalam pertemuan American Heart Association di Dallas tahun 2000, Frank mengungkapkan ahsil penelitiannya terhadap 86 ribu wanita yang sering mengkonsumsi kacang, disimpulkan bahwa mengkonsumsi kacang-kacangan termasuk kacang tanah, mampu menjaga pemompaan aktivitas jantung dengan teratur.
Kacang-kacangan mengandung fitosterol, Beta-Sitosterol (SIT) yang terbukti dapat menghambat pertumbuhan kanker dan melindungi dari penyakit jantung. SIT juga menawarkan perlindungan dari colon, prostate dan kanker payudara. Kandungan SIT dalam 100 gram kacang adalah 165 mg. Fitosterol dalam jantung dapat menurunkan kadar kolesterol dan level Triglyserida dengan cara memblok absorbsi kolesterol dari makanan yang disirkulasikan dalam darah dan mengurangi reabsorbsi kolesterol dari hati, serta tetap menjaga HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) kolesterol. Lebih dari 80 persen lemak dalam minyak kacang adalah jenis yang tidak jenuh dan sehat bagi jantung serta bebas kolesterol.
Selain mengandung SIT, kacang-kacangan juga mengandung serat (fiber). Menurut Prof Dr Muhilal dari Pusat Penelitian dan Pengembangan Gizi dan Makanan, Bogor, tingginya kolesterol darah merupakan salah satu faktor risiko terjadinya penyakit jantung koroner. Serat dalam makanan terdiri dari serat yang larut dalam air dan yang tidak terlarut dalam air, namun keduanya dapat menurunkan kolesterol.
Muhilal menjelaskan penurunan kolesterol terjadi antara lain karena kolesterol terbawa ke dalam feses bersama serat dan proses biosintesis kolesterol dalam hati berkurang karena tingginya konsumsi serat. Idealnya, kita harus mengkonsumsi serat 25-30 gram per hari. Kacang tanah termasuk makanan yang mengandung serat. Satu sendok kecil kacang tanah mengandung 2 gram serat atau 8 persen dari serat yang dibutuhkan per hari.
”Masyarakat Indonesia rata-rata hanya mengkonsumsi serat 10,5 gram per hari, jauh di bawah yang dianggap dapat menurunkan risiko terkena penyakit jantung koroner yakni di atas 20 gram per hari. Lebih dari 90 persen penduduk Indonesia konsumsi seratnya kurang dari 20 gram per hari,” ujarnya. Menurutnya, sayuran, buah-buahan dan serealia merupakan sumber serat. Tapi sayangnya, serealia yang ada di pasaran sudah sangat rendah kandungan seratnya karena masyarakat lebih suka pada beras yang disosok.
Sementara itu Menteri Kesehatan Achmad Sujudi mengatakan sejak tahun 1955, penyakit jantung merupakan penyebab kematian nomor satu di Indonesia. ”Perilaku hidup yang berisiko di kalangan masyarakat seperti merokok, pola makan yang tidak seimbang dan kurang melakukan aktivitas fisik merupakan penyebab terjadinya penyakit jantung koroner. Data dari WHO menunjukkan setiap tahun tidak kurang dari 12 juta orang meninggal dunia akibat serangan jantung.
Dalam penandatanganan naskah kerja sama antara Yayasan Jantung Indonesia dengan Garudafood Group, Sabtu lalu, Menkes mengatakan, kematian akibat dari penyakit tidak menular seperti jantung, stroke, diabetes dan sebagainya memberikan kontribusi yang cukup tinggi bila dibandingkan dengan kematian akibat penyakit menular. Pada tahun 2000 ada sekitar 55 juta orang meninggal karena serangan jantung, stroke, kanker dan diabetes.
”Kematian akibat penyakit tidak menular hampir 60 persen dari kematian di dunia. Tujuh puluh sembilan persen kematian akibat penyakit tidak menular terjadi di negara-negara berkembang. Penyakit tidak menular tersebut dapat dicegah dengan pola makan yang seimbang, berhenti merokok dan olahraga secara teratur,” ujarnya.

Canon (company)

Canon Inc. (キヤノン株式会社, Kyanon Kabushiki Gaisha?, TYO: 7751 , NYSE: CAJ) is a Japanese company that specializes in imaging and optical products, including cameras, photocopiers and computer printers. The headquarters are in 30-2, Shimomaruko 3-chome, Ota-ku, Tokyo. Their North American headquarters is located in Lake Success, New York, USA.
The predecessor company was established in 1903 by Goro Yoshida and his brother-in-law Saburo Uchida. Named Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory (Seiki Kōgaku Kenkyūjo, Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory?), it was funded by Takeshi Mitarai, a close friend of Uchida. Its original purpose was to develop a 35mm rangefinder camera.


1934 logo depicting the Bodhisattva Kwan'on.
In June 1934 they released their first camera, the Kwanon (see "Origins of company name" below). Three variations of this product were marketed, however, none were actual products. Of the ten Kwanon cameras that were rumored to be produced, none were ever known to reach the market.
The new company was off to a good start. However, there was a problem: Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory had not developed a lens. Several alternatives were considered, but the decision was made to seek help from a corporation known as Nippon Kogaku Kogyo (Japan Optical Industries, Inc., the predecessor of Nikon) to use their Nikkor lens. So in February 1936, the Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory was able to release the "Hansa Canon (Standard Model with the Nikkor 50mm f/3.5 lens)", which became Kwanon's first commercially available camera.
The following year the company name was changed to Canon to reflect a more modern image, and on 10 August 1937, the current corporation was founded.[1]
Today, despite the company's high profile in the consumer market for cameras and computer printers, most of the company revenue comes from the office products division, especially for analog and digital copiers, and its line of imageRUNNER digital multifunctional devices. Additionally, Canon is the supplier of print engines found in the hugely popular Hewlett-Packard LaserJet series of laser printers. [2]
Canon has also entered the digital displays market by teaming up with Toshiba to develop and manufacture flat panel televisions based on SED, a new type of display technology. The joint venture company SED Inc. was established in October 2004. In January 2007, Canon announced that it would buy Toshiba's share of the joint venture.[3] This move was triggered by litigation from Nano-Proprietary, Inc., which claimed Canon breached a license agreement by sharing technology licensed to Canon with the joint venture company.[4]
Canon has also announced it is developing OLED and rear-projection displays.[5]

AT&T

This article is about the current AT&T. For the 1885-2005 company, see American Telephone & Telegraph. For the wireless provider subsidiary, see AT&T Mobility. For the 1910s British airline, see Aircraft Transport and Travel.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is the largest provider of both local and long distance telephone services, wireless service, and DSL Internet access in the United States. AT&T is based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Formerly SBC Communications, Inc., the company shed its name and took on the iconic AT&T moniker and the T stock-trading symbol (for "telephone") after its acquisition of AT&T Corporation.
Since the break-up of American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1984, most of the companies spun off from it (the "Baby Bells") have merged into three major US telecommunications groups: Verizon, Qwest, and AT&T Inc. Most of these companies are made up primarily of former components of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. For the new AT&T, these include many Bell Operating Companies and the long distance division.

Alfred Dunhill, Ltd.

Alfred Dunhill, Ltd. is a British-based company, specializing in leather goods, writing implements, lighters, timepieces, fragrances and clothing. The business was developed by Alfred Dunhill after he inherited his father's saddlery business on London's Euston Road. Dunhill, responding to the growing demand for automobiles, developed a line of accessories called "Dunhill's Motorities". This first collection included car horns and lamps, leather overcoats, goggles, picnic sets and timepieces. Dunhill pitched the company under the slogan “Everything For The Car But The Motor”.
In 1967 Carreras acquired a 51% stake in the company. The company is currently owned by Richemont.
Currently, Jude Law appears in Dunhill ads in Asia.
Contents
[hide]
1 Dunhill Fragrances
2 Sponsorship
3 Abridged Timeline
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit] Dunhill Fragrances
All fragrances sold under the Dunhill brand name are manufactured and marketed through a licensing agreement by Procter and Gamble Prestige Products division. P&G gained the license as part of their 1995 acquisition of the Wella Corporation.
[edit] Sponsorship
Alfred Dunhill was involved in sponsorship of golf tournaments, namely Alfred Dunhill Cup
[edit] Abridged Timeline
1893 – Aged 21, Alfred Dunhill takes over his father’s saddlery business and converts it into Dunhill’s Motorities, providing ‘Everything for the car but the motor’.
1903 – Dunhill’s first dashboard clock marks their entry into the timepiece arena.
1905 – Alfred Dunhill patents his Windshield Pipe, designed to allow comfortable smoking while driving or cycling.
1907 – Having retired from running the Motorities business, Alfred Dunhill opens a pipe, cigar and tobacco store among the men’s clubs of Duke Street, St. James’s, London SW1.
1910 – Dunhill opens a pipe factory near the store.
1915 – The trademark White Spot marking is added to Dunhill’s pipes.
1921 – Store opens in New York; Paris store opens three years later.
1927 – Dunhill launches the revolutionary Unique lighter, the first to be operated using just one hand.
1928 – Dunhill begins distributing the Namiki pen company’s maki-e lacquered pens.
1936 – The iconic Facet timepiece, based on Dunhill’s car head-lamp designs, is launched.
1941 – Dunhill’s Duke Street store is bombed during World War II; it was extended and rebuilt in the 1950s and recently renovated.
1956 – The Rollagas butane lighter is launched.
1963 – Manufacture of Dunhill brand cigarettes starts.
1985 – First annual Alfred Dunhill Cup golf tournament.
2000 – Dunhill Links golf championship supersedes Dunhill Cup.
2005 – Savile Row tailor Richard James, watchmaker Tom Bolt, casual-wear designer Nick Ashley and leather-smith Bill Amberg are brought on board to help revitalise the brand.
Rare and classic car event the Alfred Dunhill Motorities Tour is inaugurated.

7 ways to look good to a lender

Even as interest rates remain at attractive levels, many people looking to start or expand a business venture are having trouble getting a loan.

Banks may be pushing great deals on home-equity credit lines and other loan offerings, but they also are being extremely selective about who they lend to.
Now more than ever, you must engender the trust and confidence of your lender.
There's no magic bullet that you can fire to bag yourself a trophy loan. But there are some guidelines that can put you on the right path to your quarry.
Here are seven dos and don't when applying for a business loan.

1. Even if you're not organized, look organized.
Yes, it's especially hard when you're trying to grow a business and changing your company's internal systems to meet that growth. But this is when looking sharp is even more important.
"I think the thing that will really impress a banker and get him excited about a borrower is a well-organized package," says Bob Bifolco, executive vice president with Progress Bank in Blue Bell, Pa.
What Bifolco likes to see: Three years of tax returns, an interim financial statement, listings of receivables and payables, insurance records that show what equipment the company owns and the assets' possible replacement value and a cash-flow statement for the past year.
"You bring in a package like that and the banker is likely to immediately deem you as a sophisticated prospect who is running the business in a sound financial manner," Bifolco says.

2. Clean up your "a/r" and your "a/p."
That's accountant-speak for accounts receivable and accounts payable. The problem is pretty simple: Lenders don't like it when they see a business waiting for lots of money to come in (accounts receivable).
"If somebody is getting paid in 90 days but has to pay his vendors in 30 days, we feel like he has a problem," says Merv Shorr, senior vice president with Banco Popular North America.
Old accounts receivable aren't just an indicator of slow-paying clients — they also can be a red flag for nonpaying accounts. Lenders may want to see a reserve for bad debts to reflect potential un-collectible bills.

3. Your assets: Know that lenders care about what they are worth now.
"Bankers are going to want to tie up more assets than the loan is worth whenever possible," says Dana Barfield, a financial planner in Richardson, Texas, who specializes in planning for businesses with up to $80 million in revenues.
So lenders will look at your assets not in terms of what you paid for them, but rather in terms of what they could be sold for if the business is ever to be liquidated.
Overall, this is going to favor the manufacturer with a brand-new production line over the information services business with rapidly depreciating computer equipment. You can't do much about this, but be aware and plan accordingly.

4. Improve your loan-to-value ratio.
Desirable loan-to-value ratios vary by industry. Leasing companies, for example, tend to have higher acceptable loan-to-value ratios.
Bifolco says that, in general, he likes to see loan-to-value ratios of 3-to-1 or less; Shorr suggests that 4-to-1 is a winner. But there isn't a strict bar for this ratio. "What I'm looking for is a snapshot that will tell me if this company can make it through a few rainy days, through a couple of recessions," Bifolco says. "Not being over leveraged is part of that."

5. Remember that lenders want interest payments plus.
It's not unusual for people looking to borrow money to consider themselves good risks if they can show that they can service the debt — that is, produce enough monthly cash to pay the interest on the loan.
But that's not enough for lenders these days. Most of them want to see that you can generate enough cash to not only service the debt but also to pay back principal. So instead of just interest coverage, you have to think about — and be able to show — how the business will have total debt coverage.

6. Yes, they want you borrowing, but not too much.
A business that has a track record of borrowing and repaying always has a leg up on getting a new loan.
But lenders don't like to see debt servicing consuming too much income. Debt-to-income ratios of less than 40% are preferred. That means if you are making $10,000 in profits monthly, not more than $4,000 of that should be getting siphoned off for debt servicing.
"In general, we really don't like debt-to-income ratios of 50% or more," says Melissa Hammit , commercial credit analyst for Wood forest National Bank in Woodlands, Texas.

7. Personal credit dings? Hold back a bit.
Lenders say that good personal credit can help with a business loan, especially since many small-business borrowers have to guarantee the loan personally. The reverse is also true: Some dings on your record could hurt you.
So try to hold off on applying for a business loan if you've recently missed some payments or had other credit problems. Going more than a full year with a clean personal credit record can make a difference when signing that business loan application.

Accelerating Results: How Businesses Succeed

There are a number of ways to quantify and qualify business success and results. One that has been widely popularized by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema in their book The Discipline of Market Leaders, and affirmed repeatedly by business leaders, suggests that market leaders can be categorized into one of three disciplines in which they excel:
•
Developing intimacy with customers as a way to foster loyalty and repeat business.

•
Creating products or services that customers find indispensable.

•
Managing a business in the most efficient way possible, cutting costs and improving productivity.
In each of these disciplines, innovative software helps market leaders to either perform better or gain the flexibility to shift focus to other areas. Let’s look at some examples.
Customer Intimacy


Companies who seek to build on a foundation of exceptional customer relationships strive to deeply understand and connect with their customers. One outstanding example of this is Nordstrom, a retailer that has thrived in that competitive industry by using customer service and customer data to acquire and maintain customers and to build unparalleled loyalty. Amazon.com, another retailer that understands how important a deep connection with customers can be, uses technology to understand the customers’ shopping habits and more effectively provide them with suggestions and personalized shopping experiences.
Many industries can profit from a focus on customer service. One example is Sandvik Coromant, a world-leading company for tools used in metalworking applications. The company needed a new way to connect with customers, so it used Microsoft technology to create a new browser-based ordering tool that gave customers extensive access to Sandvik Coromant’s products and customer services. Furthermore, Sandvik Coromant took a larger part of becoming the solution in some cases, actually deploying engineers, and in sometimes employing existing staff at a factory, in order to better provide the needed services and results to customers.
Now, it’s easier for Sandvik Coromant’s customers to do business with the company, making them more likely to do so in the future. Sandvik Coromant estimates that more than 1,000 customers are accessing its information and transaction processes via its new interface. The company believes that the new solution is both reducing costs and boosting revenues by attracting new customers and increasing its business with current customers

Adapt and Harness Change: How Business Connects

People—and the businesses they run—are not constrained by the four walls of their corporate headquarters. They work with partners, they meet customers, they work on the road. Success in this business environment requires building strong, flexible connections within this dynamic network—connections that allow people to adapt quickly to change and harness it to meet business objectives. Innovative software can move businesses beyond the constraints of phones, faxes, and memos to efficient, standards-based connections by knocking down organizational and technical boundaries, strengthening relationships, and leveraging existing investments.
Dell is a good example of a company that constantly works to forge better links with its customers and partners. Using Microsoft technology, Dell recently linked a number of systems to give customers and partners up-to-the-minute information on Dell systems’ prices and features. For instance, Web services were developed to provide online partners with real-time pricing or to verify shipping addresses. As Dell employees saw these tools’ value, they too started using them, regardless of whether they were meant for customers or partners.
Dell also has deployed Microsoft solutions to help streamline data warehouse support systems, develop an internal sales user interface that shares shopping baskets and other sales tools between Dell.com and other Dell business units, and create a Dell MyAccount service that provides personalized information to customers. With Microsoft technology, Dell has forged new and stronger ties to customers, partners, suppliers, and employees, helping the company adapt to any change in its business climate.

8 ways to tame your brain

Most investors think too much and end up making the wrong moves. Follow these 8 guidelines and make the right ones.
Avoid the "sure thing"
Your "seeking system" is especially turned on by the prospect of a big score, and that in turn will hinder your ability to calculate realistic odds for the success of an investment.
Be on your guard against any sales rep who tries to lure you with jackpot jargon like "can't miss," "double your money" or "the sky's the limit."
Remember: lightning seldom strikes twice
If you've ever had the taste of a big gain, you'll likely be tempted to try to get that feeling back. So be especially wary of investing in stocks or mutual funds that remind you of the one you made a killing on long ago; chances are, any similarities to another investment, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
Think twice
Making a financial decision while you're inflamed by the prospects of a big gain - or a huge paper loss - is a terrible idea.
Calm yourself down (if you don't have kids to distract you, take a walk around the block or go to the gym) and reconsider when the heat of the moment has passed.
Get away from the herd
If you are part of an investment organization, appoint an internal sniper whose job is to shoot down ideas everyone likes. (Rotate this role to prevent one person from becoming universally disliked.)
Similarly, if you're at a barbecue and your friends are talking up a seemingly great opportunity, speak to someone you respect who isn't part of the group before you jump in.
Lock up your "mad money"
Put at least 90% of your stock money into a low-cost, diversified index fund that owns everything in the market. Put 10%, tops, at risk on speculative trades. Be sure this "mad money" resides in a separate account from your long-term investments; never mingle them. Never add more money to the speculative account. (It's especially important to resist that temptation when your trades have been doing well.)
If you get wiped out, close out the account.
Control your cues
The stock market generates signals that can goad you into trading. Try watching CNBC with the sound off so that none of the hullabaloo about what the market is doing this second can distract you.
If you walk past the local brokerage firm every day so you can sneak a peek at the electronic ticker, take a different route. If you obsessively check a stock's price, use the "history" window on your browser to count how many times you've updated the price that day. The number may shock you.
Use your words
While vivid sights and sounds - say, red down arrows and scenes of mayhem on the exchange floor - fire up your emotions, the more complex cues of language activate analytical areas of your brain.
To prevent your feelings from overwhelming the facts and leading you to sell in a panic, ask yourself:
- Other than price, what's changed?
- Are my original reasons to invest still valid?
- Shouldn't I like this investment even more now that it's cheaper?
Track your feelings
Many of the world's best investors have learned to treat their own feelings as reverse indicators: Excitement becomes a cue that it's time to consider selling; fear tells them they should be thinking about buying.
I once asked renowned fund manager Brian Posner of Fidelity and Legg Mason how he sensed whether a stock would be a moneymaker. "If it makes me feel like I want to throw up," he answered, "I can be pretty sure it's a great investment."

Melihat Perjalanan Bangsa Indonesia Dalam Pembangunan Ekonomi Kurun Waktu 62 Tahun

Kurun waktu 62 tahun untuk sebuah negara muda yang bernama Indonesia adalah sebuah perjalanan sejarah panjang. Perjalanan sejarah itu tentu diwarnai dengan peristiwa-peristiwa sejarah yang menarik ada suka cita dan ada duka cita. Sejak pemimpin bangsa Indonesia, Sukarno-Hatta atas nama bangsa Indonesia memproklamirkan kemerdekaan jam 10 pagi, hari Jum’at, 17 Agustus 1945. Kita secara sadar telah menjadi negara merdeka untuk membangun sebuah negara Indonesia yang modern untuk mewujudkan masyarakat Indonesia yang adil dan makmur.
Selama 62 tahun, negara Indonesia juga telah banyak berbagai macam pergolakan. Tahun 1950-an terjadi pergolakan politik di berbagai daerah, seperti pemberontakan PRRI-Semesta di Sumetera sampai dengan pemberontakan PKI tahun 1965 sehingga negara ini tidak sempat membangun pondasi ekonomi yang kokoh. Tahun 1998, negara ini juga mengalami kembali pergolakan di bidang ekonomi yang di tandai dengan terjadinya krisis finansial yang berubah menjadi krisis multidimensi dan berakibat turunnya Presiden Suharto atas desakan mahasiswa yang didukung rakyat. Tahun 1998 juga kita memasuki sebuah era baru yang di sebut era reformasi. Tujuannya dalah untuk membuka sebuah babak baru yang lebih intelektual dan lebih manusiawi dalam kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara. Era reformasi dimulai dibawah kepemimpinan Presiden B.J. Habibie yang semula menjabat sebagai Menristek dan Wakil Presiden kemudia menjadi Presiden Republik Indonesia yang ketiga.
Ketika era reformasi berjalan tanpa arah yang menyebabkan bangsa ini sangat lambat dalam proses pembangunan. Semua orang ikut prihatin dan bertanya Apa yang salah dengan bangsa Indonesia? Sebenarnya ini adalah sebuah pertanyaan yang sederhana tetapi membutuhkan jawaban yang panjang dan bukti empiris yang mendalam. Kemudian ketika jawaban yang bangsa ini cari tidak ditenukan juga. Setiap orang kemudian menyerukan diperlukan sebuah Mindset Indonesia baru. Kita perlu nilai-nilai baru dalam kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara. Tetapi kita lupa Mindset mengenai Indonesia modern telah dibuat oleh presiden pertama kita Ir. Sukarno yaitu Pancasila dan Nation Character Building. Bung Karno semasa menjabat sebagai presiden telah mempunyai visi dan misi mengenai masa depan bangsa Indonesia. Coba Anda baca mengenai Pidato Kenegaraan 17 Agustus 1945-17 Agustus 1966 di dalam buku Dibawah Bendera Revolusi Jilid II. Ketika kita membacanya kita bisa melihat bagaimana visi dan misi seorang pemimpin untuk negaranya yaitu Indonesia dan dunia yaitu bagaimana menciptakan dunia yang lebih adil.
Di masa pemerintahan Sukarno, Indonesia adalah negara dunia ketiga yang dihormati oleh dunia internasional selain membangun di sektor ekonomi (walaupun belum bisa menciptakan pondasi ekonomi yang kokoh karena terus diganggu oleh pemberontakan), Bung Karno juga selalu menyerukan arti pentingnya sebuah persatuan dan kesatuam bangsa di setiap pidatonya yang selalu berapi-api. Bung Karno sebagai seorang pemimpin juga berhasil mengadakan konferensi Asia-Afrika tahun 1955 di Bandung dan tidak lama berselang hasilnya adalah banyak negara-negara di Asia-Afrika yang merdeka. Ini adalah sebuah kemajuan besar dan luar biasa bagi politik luar negeri Indonesia. Tahun 1961, di Gedung PBB Bung Karno menyerukan pembentukan Tata Dunia Baru dalam pidatonya yang berjudul To Build World A New dan perjuangan bersama para pemimpin dunia lainnya membentuk Gerakan NonBlok yang bertujuan untuk meredakan konflik dua negara adikuasa pada waktu itu yaitu AS-Uni Sovyet. Gerakan NonBlok tidak mau memihak salah satu blok hanya karena kepentingan ideologi semata. Tahun 1967, kekuasaan presiden Sukarno riwayatnya tamat akibat pemberontakan G30-SPKI karena MPRS mencabut mandatnya dan menolak pidato pertanggungjawabannya yang diberi nama Nawaksara. Keadaan ekonomi yang kacau balau karena selama pemerintahannya presiden Sukarno sibuk untuk membasmi beberapa pemberontakan yang mengancam kedaulatan NKRI. MPRS kemudian mengangkat Suharto sebagai pejabat presiden yang kemudian secara bertahap diberikan mandat untuk menggantikan presiden Sukarno untuk menjalankan pemerintahan pada tahun 1967.
Tahun 1967, Indonesia memasuki sebuah babak baru dimana rejim Suharto menyebutnya sebagai Orde Baru karena mempunyai tekad untuk membangun sebuah Indonesia Baru yang difokuskan kepada pembangunan ekonomi dengan slogan Politk No dan Ekonomi Yes. Semua yang berbau Orde Lama dibabat habis dan dilarang karena tidak sesuai dengan cita-cita bangsa Indonesia akibat politik yang cenderung ke kiri menurut rejim Suharto. Untuk pembangunan ekonomi maka dibuatlah program Rencana Pembangunan Lima Tahun (Repelita). Tahun 1980-an program ini mendapat pujian dari dunia internasional karena secara tahap demi setahap berhasil membangun perekonomian Indonesia. Bukan hanya itu saja Indonesia mengalami booming minyak yang membuat kas negara menjadi gemuk. Karena kelebihan dana, pemerintah mampu membangun infrastruktur-infrastruktur pembangunan, seperti jalan raya, rumah sakit, rumah ibadah, perumahan BTN, sekolah dll. Tapi sayang saat proyek itu berjalan perilaku untuk korupsi tidak bisa dicegah. Bahkan proyek-proyek pembangunan infrastruktur dimanfaatkan sebagai lahan untuk korupsi. Tahun 1984, Indonesia mendapatkan penghargaan dari FAO di Roma Italia karena berhasil melakukan swasembada beras. Indonesia tidak perlu lagi mengimpor beras dari luar negeri khususnya dari Thailand dan Vietnam karena sudah mampu untuk memenuhi kebutuhannya sendiri. Untuk menopang pembangunan nasional, pemerintahan Suharto mulai membina pengusaha-penguasaha yang diberikan hak istimewa yaitu berupa proteksi karena dalam jangka panjang akan dijadikan konglomerat. Pemerintahan Suharto meniru sukses Korea Selatan dimana para konglomeratnya diberikan hak istimewa dan dijadikan tulang punggung dalam perekonomian nasional.
Proyek konglomerat itu memunculkan nama-nama seperti Sinar Mas, Salim Grup yang diberikan hak istimewa untuk membesarkan bisnis mereka di tanah air. Ekspansi bisnis mereka hampir ke semua sektor. Dari industri perbankan hingga perkebunan. Pemerintahan Suharto berharap mereka dapat menyerap tenaga kerja dalam jumlah besar sehingga dapat mengurangi angka pengangguran dan kemiskinan. Mereka benar-benar diberi kebebasan penuh dan dilindungi oleh pemerintah. Mereka berhasil menguasai 80% aset perekonomian nasional. Roda perekonomian Indonesia pengendaliannya benar-benar di tangan mereka.
Tetapi ketika Indonesia mulai mengalami krisis moneter yang efeknya berasal dari krisis moneter di Thailand kemudian memicu krisis ekonomi yang berakibat kepada krisis multidimensi betrpengaruh juga terhadap ekonomi Indonesia. Pada tahun 1998, ekonomi Indonesia benar-benar sempoyongan. Pak Harto sebagai presiden tidak tahu harus berbuat apa. Krisis ekonomi yang memicu krisis politik akhirnya membuat pak Harto harus mundur sebagai presiden yang mengakhiri 32 tahun kekuasaannya dan membuat tamat riwayat konglomerat-konglomerat yang dibinanya. Hal yang paling menyakitkan adalah mereka para konglomerat mempergunakan bank sebagai mesin uang untuk membiayai banyak mega proyek. Ditambah banyak peraturan-pertauran mengenai industri perbankan sangat lemah dan longgar. Pemerintahan Suharto mengelurakan Paket Oktober 1988 yang membuat posisi mereka semakin kuat untuk menjadikan bank sebagai mesin uang mereka. Tapi ketika krisis ekonomi mengancam ditandai terpuruknya nilai mata uang Rupiah terhadap nilai mata uang Dollar Amerika, bisnis mereka pun hancur berantakan. Bank yang menjadi mesin uang bagi kegiatan bisnis mereka, terkena kredit macet sehingga kredit yang disalurkan tidak bisa dikembalikan sementara bisnis yang mereka jalankan terpaksa dihentikan karena merugi. Krisis ekonomi tahun 1998 membuat kerajaan bisnis mereka tamat.
Era pemerintahan habibie, mereka terpaksa menyerahkan aet-asetnya ke Badan Penyehatan Perbankan Nasional (BPPN). Sementara untuk bank yang bangkrut di beri Bantuan Likuiditas bank Indonesia (BLBI). Biaya yang harus dikeluarkan pemerintah sebesar Rp 600 triliun. Sementara itu di sisi lain kita terus mendapatkan dana dari IMF untuk program reformasi ekonomi. Bangsa ini pun semakin dibuat bingung karena terjebak dalam hutang baru yang tidak bisa menyelesaikan dan menjawab permasalahan ekonomi yang sedang genting. Bank-bank seperti Lippo, Bank Umum Nasional, Danamon harus masuk BPPN karena bermasalah. Banyak pihak yang menagatakan bahwa kredit macet yang terjadi di bank-bank milik konglomerat mempercepat Indonesia memasuki krisis moneter. Ini adalah sebuah pelajaran yang pahit tetapi berharga.
Di era pemerintahan Gus Dur dan Megawati. Pemerintah masih mengahadapi persoalan yang sama yaitu bagaimana memperbaiki ekonomi Indonesia ke arah yang lebih stabil. Melalui Menteri BUMN, Laksamana Sukardi, pemerintah terpaksa menjual aset-aset tersebut kepada pihak asing. Karena pada waktu itu kita perlu dana segar. Sementara dana yang disediakan untuk BPPN sudah menipis tanpa ada hasil yang memuaskan. Perusahaan-perusahaan asing seperti Temasek Holding dari Singapura banyak membeli perusahaan-perusahaan kita yang sudah sakit, perusahaan yang dibeli dibidang perbankan, telekomunikasi, otomotif, perkebunan dll.
Pada era pemerintahan Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Mulailah instrumen moneter diperbaiki dan dibenahi setahap demi setahap. Ketika SBY-Kalla pada hari –hari pertama menjabat sebagai presiden dan wakil presiden, pelaku pasar melihat positif karena kedua orang ini adalah pilihan langsung rakyat Indonesia melalui PEMILU. Tim kabinet ekonomi dibentuk dengan merekrut orang-orang yang kompeten dibidangnya. Kabinet Indonesia bersatu pun sadar, bahwa tantangan-tantangan yang dihadapi tidaklah ringan dan itu tidak bisa diselesaikan hanya satu peride saja (lima tahun). Tetapi arah menuju perbaikan mulai terasa dalam tatanan ekonomi makro walaupun masih banyak kelemahan disana-sini. Industri perbankan saat ini jauh lebih kokoh karena didukung modal yang kuat, manejemen risiko, tata kelola yang bersih dan transparan serta adanya pengawasan dari bank sental. Tapi yang menjadi persoalan adalah bank-bank sangat takut untuk menyalurkan kredit khsusnya kepada sektor riil.
Sikap kehati-hatian bank dalam menyalurkan kredit ke sektor riil membuat perkembangan sektor rill berjalan sangat lambat sekali. Bank berhati-hati dalam menyalurkan kreditnya ke sektor riil karena masih dibayangi pengembalian kredit yang macet. Tetapi hal itu oke lah telah menjadi sesuatu hal yang buruk. Tapi ada sektor lain yang memerlukan penanganan khsusus dari sektor perbankan yaitu usaha kecil dan menengah (UKM). Seharusnya bank-bank tidak pelit dan memberikan arah manejemen dan membuka akses pasar dari produk-produk yang dihasilkan oleh UKM. UKM sudah jelas membutuhkan bantuan dari pihak bank khususnya dalam hal permodalan. Industri ini seperti yang telah diketahui adalah bersifat padat karya yang mampu menampung tenaga kerja. Sampai saat ini hal yang terbaik bagi negara Indonesia adalah industri padat karya. Karena satu-satunya industri yang mampu mengurangi angka pengangguran.
Bank Indonesia sebagai pengawas bank-bank diseluruh Indonesia, telah membuat cetak biru industri perbankan Indonesia ke depan dengan nama Arsitektur Perbankan Indonesia (API). Tujuan dibuatnya API adalah menciptakan industri perbankan yang kokoh, sehat, dan efisien. API juga ditujukan untuk mengelola manejemen risiko perbankan. Hal ini bertjuan untuk bagaimana menciptakan sebuah industri perbankan yang maju, kokoh dan kuat. Pemerintah telah belajar banyak dari krisis ekonomi tahun 1998, dimana banyaknya bank yang bangkrut akibat kekuarngan modal dan NPL yang sangat besar. Pada saat ini industri perbankan telah banyak mengalami kemajuan karena telah memiliki manejemen risiko dan tata kelola serta transparasi yang baik. Bank Indonesia juga terus menyempurnakan aturan-aturan mengenai devisa neto, batas maksimum pemberian kredit, kualitas aktiva produktif, tingkat kesehatan bank. Karena Bank Indonesia sadar bahwa peran bank dalam pembangunan nasional sangat vital. Jika Indonesia tidak mempunyai bank yang dikelola dengan baik maka sewaktu-waktu krisis eknomi global mengancam dan akan banyak bank-bank yang akan tutup dan dunia usaha bangkrut karena kesulitan untuk mendapatkan akses kredit untuk kelangsungan usaha mereka. Selain koperasi, bank juga mempunyai peran sebagai soko guru perekonomian Indonesia.
Bank Indonesia juga akan mengkampanyekan implementasi dan standar internasional Basel II yang menitikberatkan kepada manejemen risiko. Diharapkan dengan penerapan Basel II, bank meiliki manejemen yang bagus dan akan lebih diutungkan dalam kegiatan operasionalnya. Tapi bank-bank juga harus mempunyai informasi yang cukup serta daya analisa yang kuat untuk mengantisipasi gejolak pasar keuangan global yang semaik rumit dan komplek permasalahannya.
Ketika instrumen finansial kita menuju arah perbaikan. Ada masalah yang sangat besar yang belum kita dapat selesaikan, yaitu harga sembako. Bagi masyarakat awam ekonomi menuju perbaikan jika kebutuhan pokok dapat dipenuhi dan harganya sangat terjangkau. Mereka tidak butuh informasi mengenai kisaran tingkat inflasi setiap bulan, nilai tukar Rupiah terhadap nilai tukar Dollar Amerika, jatuh bangunnya indeks harga saham gabungan dari bursa efek Jakarta. Yang mereka butuhkan adalah bagaimana dapat membeli sembako dengan harga yang terjangkau. Mereka berpendapat bahwa krisis ekonomi belum selesai karena hal ini dibuktikkan dengan pengeluaran rumah tangga yang semakin meningakt dari tahun ke tahun. Apalagi sebagaian besar kelas menengah ekonomi Indonesia berpenghasilan Rp 1 juta per bulan. Harga dari sembako yang naik pun bervariasi, misalnya bulan ini yang naik minyak goreng, bulan depan telur, bulan depannya lagi daging. Kalau harga sembako terus berfluktuatif makan yang akan terus dirugikan adalah konsumen yang berasal dari kelas menengah. Sementara kelompok rumah tangga yang berpenghasilan Rp 5 juta ke atas tidak begitu berpengaruh. Tapi yang jelas masyarakat mempunyai penghasilan Rp 1 juta per bulan dan masyarakat yang mempunyai penghasilan Rp 5 juta per bulan mempunyai suara yang sama mengenai harga sembako, yaitu pemerintah dapat menstabilkan harga sembako supaya tidak fluktuatif lagi harganya karena ini sangat berpengaruh kepada rencana keuangan keluarga untuk mengkalkulasikan dengan kebutuhan-kebutuhan lainnya.
Kita juga melihat terjai antrean minyak diberbagai daerah. Rakyat kecil membentuk antrean panjang hanya untuk mendapatkan 1-2 liter minyak tanah. Pemerintah selalu membela diri bahwa kelangkaan minyak tanah adalah hal yang wajar hal ini disebabkan karena sedang terjadi konversi dari minyak tanah ke gas elpiji. Tapi ketika sebagaian rakyat kecil yang sudah menggunakan kompor gas mengaku sangat kecewa karena kualitas kompor gas yang dipakai sangat buruk dan dibuat asal jadi tanpa mementingkan kualitas. Di Republik Indonesia yang kita cintai, jika kita tidak mempunyai uang yang banyak sangat sulit untuk mendapatkan pelayanan standar. Kita lihat konversi kompor minyak tanah ke kompor gas elpiji adalah sebuah bukti yang nyata, bahwa elit politik yang diatas sana tidak mau berbuat apa-apa terhadap rakyatnya sendiri. Padahal kita adalah anggota Organisasi Negara-negara Pengekspor Minyak (OPEC) tetapi kita harus menanggung krisis minyak di negeri sendiri. Sebagai negara anggota OPEC sangat ironis jika kita harus melihat masyarakatnya sendiri harus mengantri selama berjam-jam untuk mendapatkan jatah minyak tanah karena minyak sangat langka.
Program konversi minyak tanah ke gas elpiji yang dimulai pada awal September 2006 adalah program besar dan strategis. Hal ini disebabkan cadangan minyak bumi kita dari tahun ke tahun semakin menipis sedangkan cadangan gas alam kita masih sangat besar. Karena cadangan gas kita masih sangat besar, pemerintah mempunyai program bagaimana memanfaatkan gas sebagai sumber energi, khususnya bagi keperluan rumah tangga. Dengan dicanangkannya program ini, kredibilitas pemerintah sedang di uji khususnya dalam hal public service karena pemerintah dan rakyat berinteraksi secara langsung hal ini disebabkan menyangkut hajat hidup oarng banyak. Seharusnya pemerintah melakukan sosialisai yang cukup mengenai program ini dan menyediakan infrastruktur yang matang sehingga tidak terjadi kekacauan dalam pelaksanaannya dilapangan.
62 tahun kita merdeka. Tapi masih banyak pekerjaan rumah yang harus diselesaikan.

South Africa: Street Dogs - Warren Buffett On Efficient Market Theory

"Let me ... tell you about one of the good guys of Wall Street, my long-time friend Walter Schloss, who last year turned 90. From 1956 to 2002, Walter managed a remarkably successful investment partnership, from which he took not a dime unless his investors made money.
"Walter did not go to business school, or for that matter, college. His office contained one file cabinet in 1956; the number mushroomed to four by 2002. Walter worked without a secretary, clerk or bookkeeper, his only associate being his son, Edwin, a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.
"Walter and Edwin never came within a mile of inside information. Indeed, they used 'outside' information only sparingly, generally selecting securities by certain simple statistical methods Walter learned while working for Ben Graham. When Walter and Edwin were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, 'How would you summarise your approach?' Edwin replied, 'We try to buy stocks cheap.' So much for modern portfolio theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.
"Walter produced results over 47 years that dramatically surpassed those of the S&P 500.
"I first publicly discussed Walter's remarkable record in 1984. At that time 'efficient market theory' (EMT) was the centrepiece of investment instruction at most major business schools. This theory, as then most commonly taught, held that the price of any stock at any moment is not demonstrably mispriced, which means that no investor can be expected to overperform the stock market averages using only publicly available information (though some will do so by luck). When I talked about Walter 23 years ago, his record forcefully contradicted this dogma.
"And what did members of the academic community do when they were exposed to this new and important evidence? Unfortunately, they reacted in all-too-human fashion: rather than opening their minds, they closed their eyes. To my knowledge no business school teaching EMT made any attempt to study Walter's performance and what it meant for the school's cherished theory.
"Instead, the faculties of the schools went merrily on their way presenting EMT as having the certainty of scripture. Typically, a finance instructor who had the nerve to question EMT had about as much chance of major promotion as Galileo had of being named pope.
"Walter, meanwhile, went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions given to all those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it's helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat."

Overvalued: Why Jack Welch Isn't God

A recent issue of Publishers Weekly featured a two-page advertising spread touting "the year's most eagerly anticipated book." The promised $1 million marketing onslaught apparently will include national TV and radio spots, appearances on CNBC and the Today show, and "transit advertising" in New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston.
In other words, get ready to know Jack. The book's title, subject, and nominal author is, of course, Jack Welch, the departing chairman and chief executive officer of General Electric (which owns CNBC and the Today show) and easily the most lionized corporate hero alive. Warner Books famously agreed to pay Welch $7.1 million - nearly a record for nonfiction - to tell his story; the book will likely have to be a million-seller just to break even.
It's hard to imagine what Jack, due out in September, will add to the already voluminous body of work describing Welch and his management techniques. Among the at least ten titles in this oeuvre are such classics as Get Better or Get Beaten!: 31 Leadership Secrets from GE's Jack Welch; Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will: Lessons in Mastering Change - From the Principles Jack Welch Is Using to Revolutionize GE; Jack Welch and the GE Way; Business the Jack Welch Way; and the just-published update Get Better or Get Beaten!: 29 Leadership Secrets from GE's Jack Welch. (Apparently two of the original secrets didn't pan out.) Welch's hagiographers have declared him "the Vince Lombardi of business," "a heroic form of CEO," "the world's greatest business leader," "the manager of the century," and "CEO of the century." You'd almost think Welch was single-handedly responsible for the growth of the entire global economy. Oh, wait, he's been credited with that as well: "As the most widely admired, studied, and imitated CEO of his time," argued Fortune, "Welch has enriched not only GE's shareholders but also the shareholders of companies around the globe. His total economic impact is impossible to calculate but must be a staggering multiple of his GE performance."
Welch's critics (when they can be found) typically point to the massive layoffs he has overseen at GE or to allegations that GE plants have polluted the Hudson River. (Thomas F. O'Boyle's muckraking book At Any Cost is probably the most comprehensive anti-Welch brief to date.) But these and related attacks, whatever their merit, are largely beside the point as far as Welch's boosters are concerned. As long as GE isn't overwhelmed by some massive scandal (think Firestone) or federal lawsuit (think Microsoft), Welch will ultimately be judged by his impact on GE's bottom line.
And that impact looks impressive. In 1980, the year before Welch became CEO, GE recorded revenues of roughly $26.8 billion; in 2000 they were nearly $130 billion. When Welch took over, the stock market judged the company to be worth about $14 billion. Today its market capitalization is roughly $490 billion, making it the most valuable company in the world.
But there's a difference between being a good CEO - which Welch has been - and being the undisputed all-time champion of corporate leadership. Or, to put it another way, think of Jack Welch as a stock. If the most sensible way to gauge the current value of a stock is the famous price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio - that is, the ratio of a stock's market cost to the company's actual or expected profits - then consider Welch's reputation as "price" and his achievement as "earnings." A stock can be overvalued, sometimes wildly so, even if its earnings look solid. In bottom-line terms, Welch's achievements are solid. But his reputation? As a multiple of what he has actually accomplished, it's gotten far too pricey to buy.
* * * * *
What lessons could Jack contain that would justify its $7.1 million advance? Well, one key piece of advice that Welch might offer - but probably won't - is that the best way to look like a great manager is to work for a great company. CEOs are often depicted as almost single-handedly responsible for the good fortunes of their companies. (This is a notion CEOs embrace when crafting or defending their compensation packages; Welch himself has benefited from this reasoning, to the tune of an estimated $93.1 million in 1999 and $122.5 million last year.) So it was Lou Gerstner who turned around IBM, Lee Iacocca who saved Chrysler, and Jack Welch who "revived" GE. But sometimes the truth is just the reverse. Although most observers discuss GE as the house that Jack built, it's more true to say that GE is the house that built Jack.
John Francis Welch (i.e., Jack) took the reins at GE in 1981, following a long, exhaustive, and competitive succession process overseen by his predecessor, Reg Jones. But, contrary to the notion that Welch inherited a moribund company, things were going pretty well already. Over the course of Jones's stint at the top, which began in 1972, revenue had grown at an average annual rate of 12 percent, and earnings had grown at 16 percent. The spin offered by Robert Slater, author of The New GE: How Jack Welch Revived an American Institution (as well as three other Welch volumes), is that Welch "did not want to wait until General Electric was in trouble.... To keep those figures from declining, Welch knew he had to push the company to become more competitive." Janet Lowe, author of Jack Welch Speaks and the recent biography Welch: An American Icon, echoes this line: "The challenge for Welch was to spot trouble before it occurred, to take preventative measures, and to make the most of GE's tremendous momentum."
Fine. And in fact GE has averaged a solid 12 percent annual earnings growth throughout Welch's time at the top, and about 15 percent over the last eight years. But if no trouble had yet "occurred" when he took over, and GE already boasted "tremendous momentum," why credit Welch with a revival rather than with maintaining a past record of excellence? The truth is that while CEO biographers need a larger-than-life hero, GE did not. Indeed, as James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras explain in their celebrated and insightful 1994 book Built to Last, the firm has enjoyed success under a series of innovative chief executives stretching back to the early 1900s.
Early in the twentieth century GE started what's been called the first major industrial research lab in the United States. Its top managers in the '20s and '30s pioneered "enlightened management" ideas, such as paid vacations for most workers, that helped attract and retain top talent, and they shrewdly moved the company into home appliances. "Few corporations are more progressive or better managed," observed Forbes in 1929. In the '50s GE was again a pioneer, this time in decentralizing its management structure to encourage divisional independence and growth, paving the way for new business units organized around, for instance, plastics. Its CEO in the '50s, Ralph Cordiner, founded the company's well-known corporate university in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, which has been described as the first private facility designed to codify and teach management skills. In the '60s the company experimented with new industries once again, and, while some of these experiments floundered, others - plastics, airplane engines, and especially the decision to let its credit division branch out into other financial services - laid the foundation for the industrial conglomerate that GE is today. When Welch took over after the recession- and inflation-plagued '70s, Jones was a celebrated figure whose tenure had left GE, in the words of Welch biographer Lowe, "one of the strongest [companies] in America" in financial terms; its debt rating was triple-A.
How strong has GE been under Welch? One popular benchmark is return on equity (ROE) - earnings as a percentage of shareholder equity - which measures how efficiently management has used shareholders' capital to create profits. Last year the median figure for profits as a percentage of shareholder equity among Fortune 500 companies was 14.6 percent. According to GE, its average annual ROE under Welch has been 25.8 percent, which is exceptional. But it's not unique, even for GE. In Built to Last, Collins and Porras compile pre-tax ROE figures for seven "chief executive eras" at GE; they find that Welch ranked fifth. (Using an updated number provided by GE that includes the exceptional boom years since that book was published, he places third.) Collins and Porras do not suggest Welch has done a bad job - they go out of their way to note their respect "for his remarkable track record" and "immense achievements." Their point is that they "respect GE even more for its remarkable track record of continuity in top management excellence over the course of a hundred years."
Indeed, despite the marketing of Welch as a "self-made man," a "rebel," and a "revolutionary," he's actually a company man who rose up through the ranks and then continued many of the traditions of his predecessors. In keeping with GE custom, Welch became CEO after spending his entire career at the company. He joined in 1960; by the time The Graduate was encouraging America to laugh at the idea of a future in plastics, he had taken charge of GE's plastics business department. He was part of Jones's inner circle of top managers during most of Jones's tenure. However you want to characterize the changes and decisions Welch made during his 20 years at the top of GE, they stemmed from his background as a consummate insider. And among the many things Welch has not changed at GE is the institutional habit of promoting from within: His successor, Jeffrey R. Immelt, is also homegrown.
* * * * *
But Immelt won't be able to benefit from the second lesson Jack might offer those wishing to emulate Welch's career: Become a CEO in the early '80s. In an era when stock performance has become (for better or for worse) the one true measure of corporate success, it's useful to have begun your tenure as CEO just before the greatest bull-market run of all time.
This run has been driven not just by increased earnings but by a huge change in how much investors are willing to pay for those earnings. In 1981, S&P 500 stocks traded, on average, at nine times earnings, according to Thomson Financial/ First Call. Today, the average is nearly 25 times earnings (way above the historic figure of about 15 times earnings). To be sure, GE shares trade well above this, at 38 times earnings (more on this below). But there's simply no denying that Welch - unlike, say, Jones - ran GE during a period when the winds of investor sentiment blew mightily at the backs of share prices, and that much of his eye-popping share-return performance is attributable to a general sea change in what investors are willing to pay for stocks. (Consider this: GE's P/E is currently 51% above the average. If, in a less generous market, that average dropped to its historic norm of 15, and GE held onto its premium, the company's shares would fall from about $50 to about $29 a share. If the average P/E were 9, and again GE kept its premium, its share price would be $18 - or 64% below its recent price.)
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that today GE is the most valuable corporation in the world, measured by stock market capitalization. This, if we can get down to brass tacks, is the core fact of Welch mania: He did better by his shareholders than anyone.
Except that's not true. Yes, the rise of GE shares during Welch's tenure has been awesome. But turn again to this year's Fortune 500. Where does GE rank in annual rate of return to investors over the past decade? Fifty-fifth. A great performance, to be sure, but not in a class by itself. Elsewhere in its 500 issue, Fortune notes that, over 17 years, shares of Colgate-Palmolive have decisively outperformed those of GE. (The 17-year time horizon is pegged to the tenure of Colgate-Palmolive's CEO, Reuben Mark, who avoids the press and is not, needless to say, being offered seven-figure book deals.)
But then, there are many yardsticks by which to gauge a company's performance, and raw stock market gains may not be the best. (As noted above, the monumental gains made by stocks in general - the S&P 500 is up roughly 2,000 percent since 1981 - distort direct comparisons between stock performances in the last couple of decades and those of pre-'80s CEO tenures.) Built to Last employs a better measure of corporate success: It measures the performance of an individual company's stock relative to the market during the same period. The easiest way to express this is as a simple ratio: Collins has calculated that, from 1981 to 1995, shares of Welch's GE stock stomped the broader market by a factor of 2.4 to 1. Surely that astonishing run of success is close to unique - something pulled off by only a few similarly celebrated corporate chiefs.
In fact, no. In his forthcoming book, Good to Great, Collins finds eleven companies that beat this benchmark. Earlier this year, he wrote about the former CEO of one such firm, Kimberly-Clark, in Harvard Business Review. From 1971 to 1991, that company's stock outperformed the market by a ratio of 4.1 to 1 under the leadership of one Darwin E. Smith. "And yet few people - even ardent students of business history - have heard of Darwin Smith," Collins wrote in HBR.
* * * * *
So why is Welch routinely described as the greatest corporate leader of his generation, if not of the century? Part of the answer is that, during Welch's career, America's relationship with business leaders has changed. For starters, business in general, filtered through coverage of the stock market on networks like CNBC, receives much more public attention than it did in 1980. Add to this the rise of technology companies, from Microsoft to Apple to Dell, that appeared to come from nowhere on the strength of visionary individuals whose entrepreneurial achievements were inspiring in a way few political figures could match. Looking to make business accessible in an age of economic boom and innovation, the press frequently told business stories through the prism of individuals - Iacocca, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Welch. In his day, Reg Jones was also lauded by his peers as the nation's most admired and influential CEO. It's just that the wider public wasn't that interested in such things back then.
But there's another explanation as well. Welch has given Wall Street what it wants. And, in the '80s and '90s, what it wanted above all else were companies that delivered results predictably, with no surprises, quarter by quarter. As noted above, GE trades at a distinct and impressive premium to the P/E of other companies. This is something Welch achieved. When he took over, GE was trading at a P/E of eight, roughly in line with the broader market. Typically, a company's P/E shrinks as its revenues and earnings increase; investors get less and less generous in what they're willing to pay for earnings, for the logical reason that percentage gains in earnings growth get tougher to replicate as the numbers get bigger. Nevertheless, GE under Welch has done the opposite: The market is apparently a far greater believer in GE's growth potential now than it was in 1981. That's a neat trick when you consider that today's earnings dwarf those of two decades ago.
One reason the markets may have rewarded Welch's GE with such a generous multiple is that the company has mastered the quarterly earnings ritual with almost eerie efficiency. "Wall Street loves the more than 100 quarters" - it's now 103 - "of uninterrupted growth in net income that have occurred under Mr. Welch," The New York Times summarized late last year. This isn't strictly accurate, since that string began in 1975, six years before Welch took over. Still, it's an incredible feat to roll out orderly growth from continuing operations on a quarterly basis for that long, through a wide variety of short-term economic twists and turns.
Incredible may be right. As the Welch era winds down, some critics have suggested that the methods by which GE produces its vaunted quarterly growth numbers may be less than pristine. A persuasive story by Jon Birger in the November 2000 issue of Money magazine argued that the company uses "a number of confusing but apparently legal gimmicks to achieve its vaunted consistency." (GE responded by sending a note to its stock analysts labeling Money's article "an unprecedented collection of nonsense.") Fortune (arguably Welch's biggest booster) followed up on March 19 with a story called "Accounting in Wonderland." Each wrestled in the thicket of restructuring charges, onetime special gains, and sales and acquisitions.
Observers are particularly suspicious of GE's record of using unique gains and restructuring charges to offset each other without disrupting that quarterly earnings flow. Most recently, charges associated with shutting down the Montgomery Ward chain, which was owned by GE Capital, were offset by a onetime gain from the sale of the last of the firm's stake in PaineWebber. Had these events occurred further apart, they would have ultimately balanced out the same way, but they could have created either a dip in earnings growth or a spike that would have been hard to top the next earnings season. And it does seem curious that GE's many onetime gains, acquisitions, and special charges invariably and smoothly balance each other every three months.
Then there's the company's pension plan. As noted in a 1999 column by Alan Abelson in Barron's, echoed in Money, GE's pension plan has been fully funded for years; it is invested in stocks and fixed-income securities, and when gains in the fund outpace the amount the company must pay, the difference falls into its reported income. This amount has grown at a faster clip than overall earnings in the last few years, and in 2000 it totaled $1.74 billion, or about 13.7 percent of net. (GE has lately stopped using the phrase "total pension plan income" to describe this figure, instead labeling it "cost reduction from pension" in its latest annual report; but it's the same thing.) The point is that this number has nothing to do with GE's actual businesses, but it helps the company meet its aggressive revenue-growth targets each quarter.
Of course, corporate accounting can get extremely creative without running afoul of the law - or even running afoul of good business practices - and no one has suggested that whatever gimmickry may be going on masks a flawed business. The danger is in letting the short-term mania to "make the quarter" undermine the balance sheet's long-term health. There's no evidence that it has so far, but such things take a long time to play out.
* * * * *
Chances are that GE will remain healthy under Immelt - again, because it is a business with executive talent both deep and wide. What's less clear is whether the intangible optimism, tied to Welch's mystique, that has helped inflate the growth of GE stock can hold out. It will take years, for instance, to figure out whether Welch's last act, the mega-acquisition of Honeywell, will play out as planned. If the integration process hits a speed bump - if, God forbid, something interferes with that quarterly earnings streak - that good-vibrations optimism could disappear.
Although the rockiness of the market has left GE shares essentially flat over the past 18 months, they are still generously priced. If this generosity deteriorates even mildly - say GE's growth slows a bit - it will severely affect GE shares. Suppose the stock's P/E enjoyed merely a 10 percent premium over the market's current (historically high) average. That would knock about 29 percent off GE's current share price - or wipe out a whopping $142 billion of the company's overall value. Such are the perils of a stock priced to reflect a belief in managerial perfection. Even now, GE shares are about 19 percent off their 52-week high, not because of weaker earnings, but because investors aren't willing to pay as much for those earnings as they used to. If Welch picked the perfect time to take control of a company whose success would be measured by shareholder value, Immelt may have picked the worst.
On the cover of Jack, Welch wears a friendly grin, a cream-colored sweater, and the look of a man who figures his record speaks for itself. He is ready to talk from the gut, to explain his success, to share his secrets. Some of them, anyway.


A very similar version of this story appeared in the June 11, 2001, issue of The New Republic.

Microsoft to bring back SideWinder brand

SideWinder is back.
Microsoft Corp., citing a resurgence in PC gaming, says it will reintroduce the SideWinder brand of gaming peripherals, starting with a new mouse that will be released in October.
The SideWinder name was discontinued four years ago. Microsoft says the decision to come out with a SideWinder mouse was prompted in part by the popularity of its general-purpose IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 PC mouse among gamers.
It will be the first SideWinder-branded mouse. Previously, the SideWinder line included PC game pads, joysticks and steering wheels. The SideWinder brand was introduced in 1995.
The product line was dropped in 2003 because of the rising popularity of console gaming at the time, said Matt Barlow, director of worldwide marketing and business development in Microsoft's hardware group.
"We saw double-digit declines in these particular businesses around the world," he said. However, in the past 12 months, he said, Microsoft has seen a revival in PC gaming.
The SideWinder mouse, to retail for $79.95, comes with a wider scroll wheel, customizable weight, specially positioned buttons and other features meant to appeal to gamers. It also has a small, built-in LCD screen to display the mouse's DPI setting and help users record macros, small programs that automate specific moves in games.
Barlow declined to talk about specific plans for future SideWinder-branded products, but he said the introduction of the mouse is just the first step in bringing back the name.
Microsoft's renewed interest in gaming hardware was apparent last year, when it introduced a mouse called Habu with gaming peripheral company Razer.
The Microsoft Hardware group is marking its 25th anniversary this year. An anomaly within the software company, the group competes with companies such as Logitech.
Apart from making mice, keyboards and other peripherals, the group has contributed to projects such as Microsoft's Xbox video-game console and Surface tabletop computer. Tom Gibbons, Microsoft corporate vice president of specialized devices and applications, said the hardware unit has been profitable since its inception.

Investors at crossroads

With signs the real estate boom is slowing, investors are expected to look elsewhere for profits. Will the stock market be the beneficiary?

Last year investors were asking "Who needs stocks?" when real estate prices were soaring and condo flipping was all the rage. As 2006 gets under way, they're wondering where to turn now that the housing market is slowing and double-digit gains are no longer a slam dunk.
For investors like Jan Fowler, a business broker who lives in Odessa, it's a pressing issue. Like a lot of others, she soured on stocks in the wake of the tech bubble and fled to the relative safety of real estate. Her investment, a rental house in Holiday, nearly doubled in price during the two years she owned it. After repairs and other costs, she walked away from its recent sale with a $55,000 profit.
"I would love to buy another Florida home for rental, but prices are too inflated," she said. Fowler said that with today's prices she wouldn't be able to collect enough rent to cover the larger mortgage and fast-rising costs for property insurance.
Now she's looking for alternatives, but isn't impressed by what she sees. Fowler said she recently bought some stocks and a little gold, but is keeping most of the proceeds from the house sale in a money-market account.
"The pendulum in real estate has moved away from euphoria, but that doesn't automatically make it the next golden age for stocks," said Rick Metzger, a broker for A.G. Edwards & Sons in Tampa. He said investors are neither "scarfing up stocks" as they were in the late '90s,nor despairing as they were from 2000 to 2002.
"We're pretty close to middle ground now," he said. "Maybe if stocks look like they are starting to break out of their trading ranges, investors will come back in."
As another new year begins, the financial markets face both opportunities and potential head winds. As a result, a lot of advisers and analysts are taking the middle road - optimistic, but not wildly so.
St. Petersburg money manager Timothy McIntosh offers a typical comment: "I think we're in a period where we just get very moderate returns," he said.
However, it's easy to find other views in both directions.
"I think the market is setting a stage to have an explosive move to the upside," said Tampa money manager John Bartoletta of High Street Financial. On the other hand, Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, is predicting a difficult year.
Both professional and amateur investors are taking cues from the economic and political backdrop.
One focus is the transition at the Federal Reserve Board, where Alan Greenspan is on his way out as chairman and Ben Bernanke is stepping into those extra-large shoes. Conventional wisdom is that the Fed's cycle of quarter-point increases in short-term interest rates is coming to an end - if not this month, then most likely by the end of the first quarter - with the federal funds rate between 4.5 and 4.75 percent.
The end of the tightening cycle that began in June 2004 will be a relief to the stock market. Rising rates put a crimp in corporate profits because they make it more expensive for companies to borrow money and if they get high enough, they even could push the economy into a recession. So far, profits are doing just fine. Analysts are expecting fourth-quarter earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to be up more than 13 percent.
However, interest rates offer one ominous sign. Long-term rates have remained historically low even as short-term rates have risen. Last week, investors could earn a slightly higher yield (just under 4.4 percent) on two-year Treasuries than on the 10-year note, a situation known as an inverted yield curve, which often precedes recessions.
If long-term rates start rising, as some expect, that could create another set of problems. Mortgages would become more expensive, putting pressure on housing prices. It's positive for stocks if investors simply put new money in stocks instead of real estate. But if the real-estate market slows so much that investors can't sell properties or have to accept losses, that's negative for both stocks and the economy as a whole.
Most economists are predicting that the economy will slow this year, but not actually move into a recession.
"The economy continues to be stronger than most people thought it would be, particularly in light of the hurricanes," said Clearwater financial planner Ray Ferrara of ProVise Investment Management. He said key factors will be the availability of money for businesses borrowers and creation of new jobs. "I hate being a cynic, but it is an election year (for Congress) . . . the president will do everything he can to have the economy humming, people feeling good about themselves and being employed."
Many investors are watching commodity prices closely. Energy stocks were huge winners last year as oil prices soared and hurricanes disrupted supplies. Prices have come back down from their highs, but oil at $60 a barrel is far from cheap. Higher prices for gasoline and home heating put a crimp in consumers' ability to pay for other purchases, which could hurt retail stocks.
Other commodities, such as copper, zinc, aluminum, silver, gold and platinum have seen double digit increases this year. Overall, inflation was up 3.8 percent through November of last year, compared to 3.3 percent for 2004. In addition, consumers are being squeezed by higher prices in areas that don't show up in the inflation numbers, such as home prices and property insurance.
The war in Iraq and terrorism also are on investors' minds. The progress of the war, political and financial scandals, natural disasters and other news events all have the potential to impact markets during the year.
For investors who want to buy stocks, the pros have plenty of suggestions.
"Technology will be one of the good stories for 2006," predicted McIntosh at Strategic Investment Partners. "We think (companies) will spend a lot of money on technology next year." His picks include Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
Ferrara at ProVise Investment Management recommended going with stocks that pay dividends.
"Dividends are going to become very important," he said. "If the pundits are right about the stock market not increasing dramatically over the next couple years, you could see dividends representing 40 percent of that return."
The analysts at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg put their heads together to come up with these top picks for the new year: Amdocs Ltd., Briggs & Stratton, Chesapeake Energy Corp., Chubb Corp., Dell Inc., LifePoint Hospitals Inc., Nabors Industries Ltd., Republic Services Inc., Ryanair Holdings, U.S. Bancorp. and UNOVA Inc.
If the economy does slow considerably, that would be good for defensive stocks such as utilities and food. If it doesn't, growth stocks could do better. Just don't bet too heavily on any particular stock or scenario if you want to keep risk in check.
"The one thing 35 years have taught me is that whatever the majority thinks is going to happen usually doesn't play out that way," Ferrara said. "The key from the investor's point of view continues to be a well-diversified portfolio."

A $200,000 'loss' - and happy with it

Century 21 CEO's home is worth 15% less than when he turned down a cash offer in '04, but he's focusing on the gain.

Being the CEO of one of the nation's largest real estate firms didn't stop Tom Kunz from becoming one of those homeowners who's been hurt by the downturn in the housing market.
But not surprisingly, given his position as CEO of Century 21, Kunz thinks the investment he made in his former home in Tuscan Ranch, Calif., was still a good one, even if the value has tumbled about 15 percent over the last three years.
During a recent interview about the state of the current real estate market, Kunz noted that he bought the home for $340,000 in 1998. When he moved to New Jersey from California in 2004 to become CEO of the firm, he had a $1.3 million cash offer for his home. But he turned it down and decided to rent the house instead. A relative now lives there.
This month a former neighbor who has an identical home in the same subdivision sold the house for $1.1 million, Kunz said.
It's the type of decision that could give many homeowners and investors sleepless nights. But Kunz said it's important for him and many homeowners who find themselves in similar situations to look at what they've gained, not the theoretical loss they might have had.
"I could sit here and say, 'Oh I lost $200,000.' But I've still made about a $700,000 profit," he said in the interview late last week about the problems facing the housing market.
In fact, Kunz has seen about a 14 percent compound average rate of growth on his home investment, before inflation, since he bought it in 1998. But if he'd sold in 2004 at the higher price, he would have seen about a 25 percent rate of return.
Monday, the latest reading from the National Association of Realtors showed the glut of existing homes on the market last month jumped to a 16-year high. Sales fell last month and the median price of home fell from a year earlier the 12th straight month.
But as scary as those types of numbers might be, Kunz argues that this is a good time, not a bad time, for those who want to move to be getting into the market. He said home prices in many other markets would allow someone to trade up to a bigger home in a way they could not when sales were strong and prices were rising.
"Those are the kinds of things I think consumers need to sit down and take a look at, rather than just looking at the results the national association is putting out," he said. "I'm not saying they're not accurate. I'm just saying they don't apply to every individual market equally."
Even the National Association of Realtors' own sales report says that some potential buyers are having trouble making purchases, given the upheaval in the mortgage market that's caused lenders to tighten loan standards.
"Some buyers with contracts have been scrambling when loan commitments did not materialize at the last moment, while other potential buyers are simply waiting for the mortgage market to stabilize," said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors' senior economist, in the monthly sales report.
Other economists say most sellers aren't as willing to take Kunz's view, noting that the stubborn desire of some sellers to hold out for the price their home used to be worth is one of the problems for the real estate market.
"The average person buying or selling only does it a few times in their lives. It's driven as much by emotion, and by what their neighbors did a year or two ago, as where the market is today," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at independent research firm Weiss Research. "You do get a bunch of stubborn sellers, they may not realize how much the market has turned down, or how much inventory they're competing against."
Larson said that Kunz isn't completely wrong that this is a better market for buyers than where the market was during the boom years. But he said he doesn't think the people should be entering the market now unless they need to move for a job change, to start a family or for some other compelling reason.
"It's certainly a heck of a lot easier being a buyer now than in '06 or '05," he said. "The question is how much easier will it be a year or two from now. I tend to think the downturn has at least until the back half of next year to run, perhaps into '09.
"If you have to buy now, you'll find some bargains," he added. "But if you can wait it out, time is on your side." 

Investing Guide for the Group of Irregular Income

Are you one of them, Group of irregular income? I understand that most freelancers and also small business owners will be the “members” of this group. To be honest, I’m also one of them. Being a small business owner, my income is mostly depending on my business and I can tell you that a business is different with a steady income job, the income is different each month. This is one of the challenges that you might encounter if you want to start your business.
In this article, I would like to share with you the investing guide for the group of irregular income. Although the main target of this article is on the group of irregular income, but I think this guide is also work for any one especially those with tight budget over their steady income.
Preparation before investing Your Money – Budget Your Money
Yes I agree that budget your money is quite boring and annoying. However, from the group of irregular income, we have no choice but have to make a plan to use our money. Planning is important to an investor and budget can help you build a system to control your expenses. There are a few points that you must pay attention on budgeting your money, especially you are from the group of irregular income.
For the first 3 months, set a budget and get the average figure for your income and expenses and also categorize your expenses. The main purpose is to know your habit on spending money.
Use the information you collected for the first 3 months and predict your expenses ahead and then set a budget that included an investing account. This account will be the place where you save a certain amount of money for investing.
Then building up an emergency fund at least 4-6 months. The main purpose is to secure your life just in case anything happens in future.
If needed, try to re-allocate your money in the budget again every 1-2 weeks. This is one of the important steps for budgeting over irregular income. This will ensure your money is enough for the next pay day by reviewing your budget from time to time.
Before this, I wrote a few articles that are about budgeting which might help you:
Learn and Start Investing : Start Small with simple baby steps
I prefer to get started small in everything. This will be much easier for my mind and get motivated to take action. I usually become procrastinate and stress if I want to start something very big and complicated. Eventually nothing is done by me. So I prefer baby steps especially invest using my irregular income.
Learn “how to invest” frugally – Investing is a skill that we must learn. We cannot just jump into the market and invest our money. This sound like gambling and not investing, isn’t it? So I always try to learn and gain information before taking any actions. Since I have a budget, the money for me to take any investing courses, buying any reports or books are quite tight. So I usually read books and reports for free from local library and also local book stores. If you can take good care on their books, you are welcome to spend time reading in book stores.
Always invest with small capital – Yes, sometime I come across some of the investment that can bring more profits in a shorter time. However, those investments usually need a lot of money to invest. For me, I usually let them go and look for those small capital investments. I think stocks, forex and also mutual funds are a good start for. This is because with a small amount of money, you can start investing and gain experience.
Dare to loss “small” – So far I never heard or see any investors that do not loss any money along their life in investment. Everybody will lose money in investment. The key here is how you learn from the losses and then make more profit next time to cover it. So “Exit strategy” is playing an important role here. To minimize my losses, I always have an exit strategy. Since my income is limit and so is my investment capital, I must learn how to control the losses from investment and protect my capital.
Diversify your investment – There are always some argument between putting all your eggs in one nest or diversify them. To me both of them have their pros and cons. However, for irregular income group, I will recommend diversify. The reasons to do that are:
1.   Diversify means diversify the investment risks
2.   Diversify means diversify your investment capital and hence reduce the impact of losses into your capital.
Because our capital is limited, we must learn how to manage the risks of investment and also protect our capital from being burnt out by the market.
Conclusion
No matter what kind of job, income or business you have, you must learn how to manage your money, how to invest them and plan your future financially. Yes I agree that, sometime, there are a lot of negative voices coming out from my head telling me that “I can’t invest because of my irregular income” or “There is nothing you can do with this kind of irregular income”. This kind of negative voices and mindset don’t block me at all because I have a goal, a goal to achieve financial freedom by age of 30. I know I must do something to achieve my goal and have better future. So I still continue to learn how to prepare my irregular income, get myself ready and invest. You might also have the same condition that I have. But don’t give up! There is something you can do on your personal finance and future, even your retirement. This only depend whether you believe it or not. IF you believe, nothing can block you!

Finding an affordable first home

A young home buyer can't afford pricey Silicon Valley. Money Magazine's Walter Updegrave has three words for him: Relocation, relocation, relocation.

Question: I'm 27, make about $50,000 a year, and I still live at home. I've got about $80,000 in CDs and a money-market account, another $22,000 in a 401(k) and Roth IRA, and I have no debt. My problem is that the housing prices where I live in Silicon Valley are just way too expensive for me to be able to buy anything. What do you think I should do? - Keith, San Jose, California

Answer: I think the real question you should be asking is what should you do with your life? You've done a pretty good job of saving money while living with your parents, but at some point you'll probably want to go leave the nest and venture out on your own.


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The issue then becomes whether you can do this in the Silicon Valley area or whether it makes more sense to consider relocating to a place where house prices are still tethered to reality.

Or, to borrow from The Clash - should you stay or should you go? Let's consider both options.

There's no doubt that if you want to buy a home anytime soon, it's likely to be a tough go in Silicon Valley. True, the recent housing slump has increased inventory and pushed down asking prices in this area as it has in many others. But the median price of a single-family house as of the end of the second quarter was $865,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. That makes affordability a stretch almost any way you look at it.

Indeed, if you go to our How Much House Can You Afford calculator, I think you'll find that even under the most aggressive assumptions, you would be hard pressed to buy even a $300,000 home. And given that banks and mortgage firms today are becoming more realistic about their lending policies - after virtually abandoning sound practices the past few years - you might have a hard time getting a loan to buy a house for even well below that amount.

There are other ways to go if you want to stay in Silicon Valley. One is to look for less expensive digs, such as a condo or a single-family house that sells well below the median.

That's certainly worth a try, although the further you go down in price, the more compromises you generally have to make. (Would you mind having a freeway entrance in your back yard? Or living in a condo the size of a walk-in closet?) And, of course, you could always hope that prices fall a lot more, giving you a better shot at buying. That's possible, I suppose.

But we'd probably have to see a real meltdown before things got to the point where someone with your salary and resources had much to choose from. You could also stay in your parents' home, continue socking away as much as you can, and hope that the combination of your savings and a higher salary will allow you to gain a toehold in the housing market. The likelihood of this happening largely comes down to your salary prospects.

If you're some sort of hot-shot software engineer who's just getting started and will soon be making big bucks at a tech start-up or an already established firm, then, sure, you could soon have enough income to buy some decent digs.

But if your salary is likely to grow at a more normal pace, say 1 or 2 percentage points above the inflation rate, then absent a huge drop in prices or an uncanny ability to unearth some wonderful deal that's escaped everyone else's notice, I think you're talking about a long-shot at becoming a homeowner in the Valley.

Now let's consider the second choice: relocating. Obviously, your range of possibilities will depend on how far you're willing to move. But if you're willing to cast a wide net, you should be able to find plenty of places where you've got a much better shot at owning a home.

I suggest you begin your search by checking out Money's 2007 Best Places To Live package. You'll find stories that list the best places if you're looking for affordable house prices, the best job growth and the highest concentration of singles.

And by ranking the importance of seven different criteria ranging from affordable housing to access to health care, you can also create your own customized list of best places with our Best Places search tool, which is located on the right hand side of the main Best Places page.

On the other hand, if you really just want to get a sense of what house prices are like in different areas of the country, you can click here to scan median prices in 156 different housing markets.

Once you've identified a couple of areas you might consider, you can then go to our Cost of Living Calculator, which lets you compare how far your salary will go in a new city compared to where you're living now.

Of course, such a move isn't something you undertake lightly. Aside from practical considerations, like whether you'll have the same employment prospects in a new locale, you've also got to consider a number of personal issues, such as how you'll feel moving away from family and friends and whether a new area feels like a place where you could see yourself making new friends and building a new life.

Then again, a young person like you could look at this as an exciting adventure. I remember leaving my native Philadelphia (Go Phils!) at your age to move to the Big Apple. Did I experience some trepidation? Certainly. But it was also one of the most exciting times of my life and, ultimately, a move that's worked out. Only you can decide whether you want to hang in and see what develops in Silicon Valley or stake a claim somewhere else.

So I suggest you give it some thought, check out some of the resources I've mentioned and perhaps use some vacation time to visit a few places where you might consider living - sort of a combination road trip and house-job-life search. But whatever you decide, capitalize as much as you can from the low living expenses you enjoy while sponging off - I mean, living with - your parents.

Keep stashing money in that 401(k) and the Roth, and fatten up other savings and investment accounts as much as you can. The more you can sock away now, the more resources you'll have to draw on when you eventually buy a home, wherever that may be.

Invest to Financial Freedom - 5 Tips to prepare yourself for Risk? Tips 5

Tip number 5: Take good care on 3 unexpected factors

First of all, you do all the research and learn A to Z of the investment. Then you do all the preparation that you should do ( Those that I mention in my tip 2). Since, now, you have the great idea on the investment, and then you should have the ability to process and make your own strategy to invest and use the benefits of the investment options that you can get. You think all the things you do is complete and the investment is 100% safe and profitable. However, I means sometimes life is not that easy, you still have the risk to lost money. Why?
When comes to investment, there are a lot of factors that outside our prediction, here is 3 that I want to share:
1. Human Factors - When comes to money, there are a lot of party involved. So as your investments. For example, you invest in a stock and you know the price will raise. However, because of a mistake that made by the CEO, the stock price is going down unexpected. So this considered human factors.
2. Timing - Timing is very important for investing. When you want to invest and at what level you must exit and take the profit. This is what we always call entry and exit level. If you enter the market or exit at the wrong timing, you probably will drop down the profit or even lost in the investment.
3. Yourself - Yes, yourself is the biggest unexpected factor. Sometimes, our emotion is the hardest to control. When comes to money, we always bring along our emotion. And the funny thing is, emotion does always affect our decision making. Even you have your own investing plan or strategy, because of your emotion you will forget the plan and make your wrong decision. I experienced this before!